Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and StanleyKingston, William Henry Giles
History
Great African Travellers: From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley
Kingston, William Henry Giles
Africa -- Description and travel; Africa -- Discovery and exploration; Explorers
Month after month passed away, and he had great difficulty in obtaining
soldiers to supply the places of those who had been killed or died,
which was the fate of several.
He one day received a present of a little slave boy from an Arab
merchant, to whom, at Bombay's suggestion, the name of Klulu, meaning a
young antelope, was given.
On the 9th of September Mirambo received a severe defeat, and had to
take to flight, several of his chief men being slain.
Shaw gave Stanley a great deal of trouble. Again he himself was
attacked with fever, but his white companion in no degree sympathised
with him, even little Klulu showing more feeling. Weak as he was, he,
however, recommenced his march to the westward, with about forty men
added to his old followers.
Bombay, not for the first time, proving refractory and impudent,
received a thrashing before starting, and when Stanley arrived at his
camp at night, he found that upwards of twenty of the men had remained
behind. He, therefore, sent a strong body back, under Selim, who
returned with the men and some heavy slave-chains, and Stanley declared
that if any behaved in the same way again he would fasten them together
and make them march like slaves. Shaw also showed an unwillingness to
go forward, and kept tumbling from his donkey, either purposely or from
weakness, till at last Stanley consented to allow him to return to
Unyanyembe.
On the 1st of October, while he and his party lay encamped under a
gigantic sycamore-tree, he began to feel a contentment and comfort to
which he had long been a stranger, and he was enabled to regard his
surroundings with satisfaction.
Though the sun's rays were hot, the next day's march was easily
performed. On the roadside lay a dead man; indeed, skeletons or skulls
were seen every day, one, and sometimes two, of men who had fallen down
and died, deserted by their companions.
While encamped near the Gambe, its calm waters, on which lotus-leaves
rested placidly, all around looking picturesque and peaceful, invited
Stanley to take a bath. He discovered a shady spot under a
wide-spreading mimosa, where the ground sloped down to the still water,
and having undressed, was about to take a glorious dive, when his
attention was attracted by an enormously long body which shot into view,
occupying the spot beneath the surface which he was about to explore by
a header. It was a crocodile! He sprang back instinctively. This
proved his salvation, for the monster turned away with a disappointed
look, and he registered a vow never to be tempted again by the
treacherous calm of an African river.
As war was going on in the country, it was necessary to proceed with
caution. Some of his followers also showed a strong inclination to
mutiny, which he had to quell by summary proceedings, and Bombay
especially sank greatly in his good opinion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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